2. Box of Photographs
See! Another prompt response! I'm liking this set a lot! And this one won't make people sniffle!
Warning: shades of Spangel in this one. Well, Spangelus. But it's totally Spuffy. Buffy just doesn't know it yet. ;)
Stalking
“What ever happened to just being enemies? Of all the things… and this was my only photo of my sweet sixteen! Not that that was a great day, but it’s the principle! Oh, I’ll kill him.”
Buffy knelt in the ruined remains of Spike’s disgusting shrine, carefully collecting her photos, smoothing them out, and tucking them gently into a manila envelope she’d liberated from Giles. “I’ll kill him extra this time.”
She'd gotten all the easily-accessible photos and reached far under the dinky little table where another gleamed wetly in the candlelight.
Picking it up, she frowned.
It wasn’t of her.
It was a Polaroid, sun-faded, with a spattering of amber burns marking some long-ago liquid splash. Drusilla’s face was washed white from the flash - or freaky vampire lifestyle - and all that could be seen behind her were some fuzzy lights like a carnival. She was sticking out her tongue and wearing something shapeless and paisley.
“I don’t even get my own stalker shrine?” Buffy asked the universe incredulously. She scooted forward, looking at the area where the Drusilla picture had lain. No, there was another of Buffy - folded over to hide her ex-boyfriend. And another of her, and… there was a cardboard box, flat like a shirt box but taller and squarer, pushed up against the rough stone wall. Hanging out of it was a strip of black and white photo booth pictures. Drusilla and Spike, hamming it for the camera and dressed like punk rockers, hair all exploded out with gel and safety pins everywhere.
Buffy frowned. This could have been taken any time between the invention of the punk safety-pin and last year. Vampires were weird.
Curiosity piqued, Buffy pulled the box toward her. It was filled to the very top with a messy pile of photographs and news clippings, all sizes and shapes. She pulled out the topmost clipping. An obituary. Now that was classic vampire. Ick. She flicked it aside and picked up a big photo with a cardboard backing.
Huh. It was one of those real old-timey photos, back before people invented color or the smile. A woman in a very uncomfortable-looking black dress that covered her tightly all the way up to her jaw was holding a bewildered-looking baby in a white dress.
Okay, new kind of weird. She fished out another and nearly fell onto her butt in shock. It was Angel! Angel with a scary evil smirk wearing an old-fashioned suit with unfashionable stripes and Drusilla on his knee, wearing nothing at all. She was looking over her bare back at the camera.
Not quite sure what she expected to find, she reached for another photo of the same size. “Oh. My. God.”
She did fall back on her butt.
This time it was Spike sitting on Angel’s knee, and he was not as turned away as Drusilla had been. He leaned out a bit, smirking at the camera, and Angel’s hand was splayed possessively over a narrow waist and defined abs, and woah… Angel's other hand was on the inside of Spike's thigh.
Spike. Of the naked. Did he look exactly the same now? I mean, the hair - way different. Softer. Better. But that body? Those chiseled muscles and that abdomen and that oh so tantalizing shadow where you almost felt like you could see more if you tilted your head back?
A loud noise startled her. She jumped to her feet, started toward the door, then meeped and ran back for her envelope of photos.
Spike leaned over the opening at the top of the ladder. “Come to gloat over my utter humiliation? Again? Get out!”
Buffy tucked her envelope under her arm. “Just taking what’s mine. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near your obsession-o-rama, otherwise. Which, by the way, I don’t mind repeating, is sick.”
Surreptitiously, she slipped the photo of Spike and Angel into her back pocket before hurrying past him.
Because that was so going to need another long, careful examination for reasons she didn’t entirely want to admit to herself.
But, seriously? WOWZA.
Warning: shades of Spangel in this one. Well, Spangelus. But it's totally Spuffy. Buffy just doesn't know it yet. ;)
Stalking
“What ever happened to just being enemies? Of all the things… and this was my only photo of my sweet sixteen! Not that that was a great day, but it’s the principle! Oh, I’ll kill him.”
Buffy knelt in the ruined remains of Spike’s disgusting shrine, carefully collecting her photos, smoothing them out, and tucking them gently into a manila envelope she’d liberated from Giles. “I’ll kill him extra this time.”
She'd gotten all the easily-accessible photos and reached far under the dinky little table where another gleamed wetly in the candlelight.
Picking it up, she frowned.
It wasn’t of her.
It was a Polaroid, sun-faded, with a spattering of amber burns marking some long-ago liquid splash. Drusilla’s face was washed white from the flash - or freaky vampire lifestyle - and all that could be seen behind her were some fuzzy lights like a carnival. She was sticking out her tongue and wearing something shapeless and paisley.
“I don’t even get my own stalker shrine?” Buffy asked the universe incredulously. She scooted forward, looking at the area where the Drusilla picture had lain. No, there was another of Buffy - folded over to hide her ex-boyfriend. And another of her, and… there was a cardboard box, flat like a shirt box but taller and squarer, pushed up against the rough stone wall. Hanging out of it was a strip of black and white photo booth pictures. Drusilla and Spike, hamming it for the camera and dressed like punk rockers, hair all exploded out with gel and safety pins everywhere.
Buffy frowned. This could have been taken any time between the invention of the punk safety-pin and last year. Vampires were weird.
Curiosity piqued, Buffy pulled the box toward her. It was filled to the very top with a messy pile of photographs and news clippings, all sizes and shapes. She pulled out the topmost clipping. An obituary. Now that was classic vampire. Ick. She flicked it aside and picked up a big photo with a cardboard backing.
Huh. It was one of those real old-timey photos, back before people invented color or the smile. A woman in a very uncomfortable-looking black dress that covered her tightly all the way up to her jaw was holding a bewildered-looking baby in a white dress.
Okay, new kind of weird. She fished out another and nearly fell onto her butt in shock. It was Angel! Angel with a scary evil smirk wearing an old-fashioned suit with unfashionable stripes and Drusilla on his knee, wearing nothing at all. She was looking over her bare back at the camera.
Not quite sure what she expected to find, she reached for another photo of the same size. “Oh. My. God.”
She did fall back on her butt.
This time it was Spike sitting on Angel’s knee, and he was not as turned away as Drusilla had been. He leaned out a bit, smirking at the camera, and Angel’s hand was splayed possessively over a narrow waist and defined abs, and woah… Angel's other hand was on the inside of Spike's thigh.
Spike. Of the naked. Did he look exactly the same now? I mean, the hair - way different. Softer. Better. But that body? Those chiseled muscles and that abdomen and that oh so tantalizing shadow where you almost felt like you could see more if you tilted your head back?
A loud noise startled her. She jumped to her feet, started toward the door, then meeped and ran back for her envelope of photos.
Spike leaned over the opening at the top of the ladder. “Come to gloat over my utter humiliation? Again? Get out!”
Buffy tucked her envelope under her arm. “Just taking what’s mine. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near your obsession-o-rama, otherwise. Which, by the way, I don’t mind repeating, is sick.”
Surreptitiously, she slipped the photo of Spike and Angel into her back pocket before hurrying past him.
Because that was so going to need another long, careful examination for reasons she didn’t entirely want to admit to herself.
But, seriously? WOWZA.